Best Ways to Make $500 Dollars Realistically

There are many ways you can earn $500 fast online or offline as long as you’re willing to work hard.

One of the most popular options to make $500 or more is by selling unwanted items either online or through a garage sale.

Getting a second job outside normal business hours in addition to your regular employment is another popular option.

Taking a gig economy job is also the choice for many who are looking to earn an extra income. Gig economy refers to a general workforce where short-term contracts or freelance works is common.

For example, if you’re tech-savvy or creative, you can offer your skills online on the freelancing platforms like Fiverr and Upwork.

Completing small tasks on job sites such as TaskRabbit, selling homemade craft on Etsy or get paid to walk dogs via the Rover app are all also good ways to make extra money on the side.

If you find yourself searching for “how to get 500 dollars fast”, “I need 500 dollar fast” or “how to make 500 dollars in a day”, you need to start thinking in terms of what items you can sell or start identifying your skill set that you can offer as services to other people.

Get Paid to Answer Surveys

Participating in online surveys is an easy way to score some quick wins.

Companies conduct online surveys to collect data and learn more about their target audience to help improve their products and services.

Surveys can take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes to complete. The longer the surveys the more you can earn, some pay as high as $100 per surveys.

Some survey sites offer a $10 signup bonus so if you join five of those, you could earn $50 instantly today.

Since not all sites will have matching surveys available for you to participate each week/month, consider joining as many survey sites as you can.

How fast can you make $500 by answering surveys?

Taking online surveys alone won’t make you rich. The amount you’ll make will depend on the number of survey sites you joined and surveys that you’re eligible to participate in.

You should consider them because they are low maintenance, easy to do and free to join.

It won’t take long before you have an extra $500 in your account without even realizing it.

Get You Lost Money Back

If you’re in the US, you can go to Unclaimed.org to find out if there’s unclaimed money attached to your name.

There’s $15 billion in lost money floating around unclaimed and some of it may be yours that you may have forgotten about.

How could money be unclaimed you ask?

Well, it can be money from forgotten saving accounts you had as a kid, lost paychecks, a utility deposit on an old account or inactive stocks or bonds accounts that banks and companies have turned over to the state.

Watch the video below to learn more.

Get Paid to Hack Facebook

Do you know Facebook also relies on its users to report on security holes and bugs on the social media platform?

If you’re good with computer and just stumble upon a bug or several bugs on the platform, you can earn 500 bucks minimum for reporting the issue to them. There’s no cap on the maximum amount you can earn though.

Facebook has set up a program called Bug Bounty. To participate, simply visit this page and report the bug or security flaws.

To qualify for the reward, you must be the first person to submit the issue. The flaw must be one of those that “compromise the integrity or privacy of Facebook user data”.

Also, you must be living in a country that’s not under any U.S. sanctions. So, if you live in Iran, North Korea, Libya or Cuba, you do not qualify.

Make $500 Dollars (and More) Freelancing

Fiverr is an online freelance services marketplace that you can deliver online. It’s one of the most newbie friendly platforms to start an online service-based business with.

A service offered on Fiverr is called a Gig. You can sign up as a Seller and sell your gigs to buyers. No website or startup cost needed as Fiverr will handle everything.

The price of a gig starts out at $5 but you can offer different packages at different price points.

You can earn exponentially more by offering add-ons. From these extras, some Fiverr sellers are generating six figures income per year.

You can sell just about anything you can think of from graphic design, writing and translation, song lyrics writing, and more.

No skills? No problem!

If you consider yourself funny, you can sell funny video sketches, sing happy birthday while wearing a funny costume, write a message in beach sand at sunrise or anything else that you might find enjoyable.

I am using Fiverr personally as a buyer and a seller. I’ve been a buyer at Fiverr since 2012. In April 2018, I decided to become a seller.

As a seller, I am making a couple of hundred per month doing 4 hours of work in my spare time.

Fiverr is one of my favourite side hustles because it involves smaller gigs that can be delivered quickly. For each gig that I offer, I’m using a template that can be customized easily to create unique final products.

Signing up takes just a minute and there’s no need to handle payments or physical delivery as everything is conducted online.

Make Money Blogging

Do you know you can start a blog with a very little upfront cost, unlike other ventures? For example, this blog costs as little as $3.95 per month to host.

Starting a blog is one of those side hustles that could actually generate a life-changing income for you.

There are many ways you can make money from blogging. Some of the most popular ways include displaying ads as I do here, accepting sponsored posts, affiliate marketing, or selling your own products or services.

You can expect to earn a few hundred if not thousands of dollars monthly from your blog in less than a year. The amount tends to increase over time.

There are blogs out there which make $60K per month, no that’s not a typo, just one year after starting!

If you have always been good with animals, perhaps dog walking and pet sitting is the side hustle of your choice. For that, Rover is a good place to start.

Rover pays you for walking dogs, doggy daycare, drop-in visits and house sitting. Rover has earned the nickname “DogBnb”.

The typical rates charged on the site range from $25 to $500 a night. A drop-in visit for 30 minutes walks can range from $10-30 and Rover takes 20% from your client’s payments.

While it can be competitive with other sitters, once you get a few jobs and have a good client base, you can start earning extra income on the side doing what you enjoy.

You’re not limited to walking one dog at a time. You can also take a second or third dog with you. So you can see how this can make you $500 dollars or more pretty fast.

You can choose your own rates and have the flexibility of scheduling around your availability. Rover sitters/walkers can easily earn over $1,000 per month.

Teach English Online

Whether you’re a teacher, have a Bachelor’s degree, stay-at-home parents or just someone who has a good command of English, teaching English as a second language online is a great way to make extra income.

Each platform has different requirements and some require a couple of hours per week commitment like QKids.

Others like VIPKid hires home-based ESL or English as Secondary Language teachers for Chinese children.

VIPKID teachers earn $14-$22 per hour teaching 30-minute virtual classes. You can also set your own schedule with no hourly requirements per week.

In order to apply, you need to be a native English speaker and has a stable Internet connection.

Conclusion

There you have it! That’s how you can make $500 dollars fast!

As you can see above, there are plenty of side hustle opportunities to make money online and offline.

You could have two or three side hustles in addition to doing surveys and the other activities that generate passive income. That way you could rack up $500 dollars fast even without a job!

Although, none of these will make 500 a day in an hour of work because that’s just not realistic!

But if you really want to make $500 or more, you really have to put in the effort into these ideas. Like anything else, some may not pan out as you might expect.

Don’t give up! Give the next gig a try. If there’s a will, there’s a way.